This topic describes how to use OpenAPI Explorer to verify the connectivity of an Express Connect circuit. OpenAPI Explorer provides web-based operations. You can call APIs in OpenAPI Explorer to test the connectivity of an Express Connect circuit that is used to connect your data center to Alibaba Cloud.
Background information
If your data center is connected to Alibaba Cloud by using a primary and a secondary Express Connect circuit, you can test the connectivity of the secondary Express Connect circuit by disabling the primary Express Connect circuit for a limited time. To perform the test, you can enable and disable the virtual border router (VBR) that is associated with the primary Express Connect circuit.
If your data center is connected to Alibaba Cloud by using two Express Connect circuits, you can configure health checks and route priorities for the Express Connect circuits to enable automatic switchover. If one of the Express Connect circuits is declared unhealthy, the system automatically routes network traffic on to the other Express Connect circuit that works as expected. This ensures the high availability of your service. The time that is required to switch network traffic is affected by the number of routes in the virtual private cloud (VPC) that is connected to your data center. In most cases, the process takes less than 12 seconds.
The following table describes the configurations of a primary Express Connect circuit and a secondary Express Connect circuit. The Express Connect circuits are used to connect a data center to a VPC.
Configuration item | IP address/CIDR block |
CIDR block of the VPC | 172.16.0.0/16 |
IP address of the ECS instance | 172.16.1.25 |
CIDR block of the data center | 172.17.1.0/24 |
IP addresses of the gateways (configured on the primary VBR) |
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IP addresses of the gateways (configured on the secondary VBR) |
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IP address of the on-premises server | 172.17.1.2 |
Health check configurations for the primary VBR |
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Health check configurations for the secondary VBR |
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Step 1: Check whether the primary VBR is active
Log on to the Express Connect console.
In the left-side navigation pane, click Physical Connection.
Click the ID of the Express Connect circuit that you want to manage. On the details page that appears, check whether the primary VBR is active.
Figure 1. The details page of the Express Connect circuit
Step 2: Disable the primary VBR
Log on to OpenAPI Explorer and enter TerminateVirtualBorderRouter in the search bar.
Click TerminateVirtualBorderRouter.
Select the region where the Express Connect circuit is created, and enter the ID of the primary VBR that is associated with the circuit.
Click Initiate Call.
The status of the VBR switches to Disabling. After the operation succeeds, the status of the VBR switches to Disabled.
NoteYou can also click Terminate Connection in the Actions column of the VBR on the details page of the Express Connect circuit.
Step 3: Test the connectivity between the VPC and the data center when the primary Express Connect circuit is disabled
In the data center, ping the IP address that is used by the primary VBR: 10.0.0.1. The result shows that the connection fails. This indicates that the primary Express Connect circuit is out of service.
In the data center, ping an ECS instance that is deployed in the VPC. The result shows that the connection is active.
In the data center, use curl to access the web port of the ECS instance. The result shows that the data center can access the web page of the ECS instance.
Step 4: Enable the primary VBR
Log on to OpenAPI Explorer, and enter RecoverVirtualBorderRouter in the search bar.
Click RecoverVirtualBorderRouter.
Select the region where the Express Connect circuit is created, and enter the ID of the primary VBR that is associated with the circuit.
Click Initiate Call.
The status of the VBR switches to Enabling. After the operation succeeds, the status of the VBR switches to Active.
NoteYou can also click Recover in the Actions column of the VBR on the details page of the Express Connect circuit.
Step 5: Test the connectivity of the primary Express Connect circuit
In the data center, ping the IP address used by the primary VBR: 10.0.0.1.
References
You can call the DeleteVirtualBorderRouter operation to remove a disabled VBR in OpenAPI Explorer. For more information, see DeleteVirtualBorderRouter.